Time for Trump to slow-cook the U.N. turkeys of Turtle Bay

"In aggressively challenging the U.N.'s condemnation of his decision to move the U.S. Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, Trump has the massive leverage created by the $10 billion Washington gives to the U.N. each year.

He who pays the piper calls the tune. That's the big picture. But you get still more from the details, so let's dig in.

As the Council on Foreign Relations reports, the U.S. is responsible for nearly 40 percent of the U.N.'s refugee agency, 35 percent of the World Food Programme's total budget, and more than 30 percent of the International Organization for Migration. It provides over $2 billion a year to the U.N.'s peacekeeping budget excluding the massive cost of American military security guarantees, and 22 percent of the U.N.'s operating budget...

Trump is right to expect a measure of gratitude for this nation's commitments. Instead, he is receiving scorn and rebuke for practicing the most basic right of sovereign power to decide, in concert with a host nation, where to locate an embassy. The casual view at East 42nd Street seems to be: 'American taxpayers, write us a check, then shut up and listen while we educate them about their nation's inadequacies.'

Sorry, folks, that's not how it works. While the U.N., and many of the bankrupt cutthroats who make up its membership, have long nurtured an unveiled contempt for America and conservatives, it is they, not we, who are going to have to shape up. Trump should push unflinchingly for reform at the U.N.

First, he should double down on previously announced budgetary plans and cut U.S. spending on the U.N. by 25 percent. That figure would cause consternation in the U.N. accounting and political offices, but it would not harm lives. If the denizens of Turtle Bay are convinced of the need to act in multilateral companionship, European members could pull together the $2.5 billion or so necessary to offset U.S. cuts...

Next, Trump should demand an external audit of U.N. staffing, programs, and priorities...

Trump's opportunity here is that taxpayer interests, global needs, and the U.N.'s incompetence all give him both the cause and the means of moral action. It says much about an organization that the relocation of an American embassy sparks more anger than Bashar Assad's slaughter of hundreds of thousands of civilians.

Now, it's America's time to be angry and to demand change."

Date

December 22, 2017

Title

Time for Trump to slow-cook the turkeys of Turtle Bay, The Washington Examiner